NiaDivas

I want to thank everyone who attended our NiaDivas' Dance and Donate For China's Earthquake Survivors. Our hour-long Nia classes on Saturday and Sunday raised lots of money for Mercy Corp. We took time to reflect on those suffering and surviving this natural disaster while dancing our spirit. For those of you that missed class, our focus (for Saturday's class) was on the Strength of the Human Spirit with the intention of honoring those who will be calling on their strength to cultivate new lives. 

I am always in awe of what comes up when I use a focus that taps into the energy of our emotional and spiritual bodies.  I noticed in myself the following 1) I talked less  2) I spent more time with myself and then projected energy to the group 3) the energy of the group and the music contributed greatly to the dynamics of the class 4) we smiled and were a community.

I stayed up late Friday night crafting the music for this particular focus. I wanted the music to lead us on a journey from tragedy through triumph. We started with beautifully powerful music from Kitaro's An Enchanted
Evening , weaved our way through some of Nia's Dream Walker and freedance through American Idol, David Cook's version of We are all Innocent.  We slowed down with a version of What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love and ended with  Peter Koser's beautiful song Transformation (from his Songs for Humanity CD). My favorite section...all of us in a tight cluster walking with outstretched arms on the chorus of "We are all Innocent".  Made me tingle!!

 Thank you for coming to the event, writing your checks and dancing your spirit with me.

Lots of love,

Jill

Want more out of your workout?  Smile! 

The act of smiling releases tension in the jaw and neck, two of the greatest tension holders in the body.  Not only do the jaw and neck hold tension, they stimulate tension throughout the entire body.  In small doses, there is nothing wrong with tension, in fact small doses of tension are healthy.  But, in this day and age, tension has become our normal way of being -- so much so that we often do not realize it!  Take a quick check -- how is your jaw? Tight or loose?  How is your breathing?  Shallow or full?  Tight jaw and shallow breathing are signs of chronic tension.

By releasing tension, we enter into relaxation, the place from where a good workout starts.  The pulsing between muscular relaxation and contraction stimulates blood flow, which brings oxygen and nutrients to our muscle cells and takes CO2 and waste products away.  We get more out of our workout and we can work out longer. 

The word, Smile, starts with the letter "S," which depicts what in our body’s chemistry is called an allosteric or sigmoidal or S curve.  At the bottom of the "S" we are in relaxation.  At the top of the "S" we are in tension.  In the swiggle between the bottom and top of the "S" we are in dynamic ease, that magic place of flow between relaxation and tension where our bodies work most efficiently and derive the greatest benefits.

Watch and listen to Nia co-founders Debbie Rosas and Carlos Rosas discuss relaxation on their NiaNow website video by clicking here.

Throughout a Nia class, you'll hear Lesley and I refer to "every body sense your___(body part)___." We are inviting you into your body's sensation.  Out there in the "regular world of fitness", you won't hear the word Sensation much. You may hear the word "feeling" more. For example: "feel the burn...feel the muscle contract".  There's certainly nothing wrong with using the word "feeling".  In many ways, it's just semantics. We are all striving to connect to what we are noticing in our body in the moment.  Noticing, to me, is another way to say awareness.  In Nia, we encourage you to become aware of sensation which is just another way of saying "hey, notice what your feeling in your body". 

And this begs, the question...Why do I want to notice(become aware of) my body's feelings (sensations)? For me there is both a beauty in becoming aware of sensation and there is a benefit to it. Which is exactly why I'm writing a series of articles entitled: The Beauty and The Benefit of Nia.  Lesson One: Awakening to Sensation. We're going to have these articles on our site for you to download and read at your leisure. And I'd love to hear if the information and the experiential tip is of value to you. And if so, in what way?

I must admit. I'm in love again. It's not really surprising to me. It's part of my makeup that I fall in love like this frequently. It starts off as a casually interest and then as soon as I get my body involved....boing...I'm in love.

And now it's happened with this really amazing body...of work...called Feldenkrais.

That's right. I'm having a love affair with the magic of Feldenkrais, one of the healing art forms in Nia. I must admit, I don't even know the tip of the iceberg about Feldenkrais. I've taken about 2 hours of it. Yup, that's it. But isn't that how new love is? ...a tingley magic...an excitement that runs through your body that builds with anticipation longing for the next time you get to be together!

So what is it that's got me so "hot in the knickers" about Feldenkrais. It works. It's gentle and natural. I feel different and more comfortable in my body after just a few minutes. I don't feel like I'm "working out". I feel like I'm unraveling my body back into it's natural state...no let me rephrase that...my body is unraveling itself. I'm simply along for the relaxing ride. Staying out of the way and only being asked to be aware. I Love That. Mostly, I love how I feel when I'm doing it and how I feel afterward.

So yes, my list of lovers has now gotten longer....Nia, Yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonics, Bartineoff fundamentals, Kinesis, Rolfing, Cranial Sacral Therapy....and now Feldenkrais. Even though there are many modalities I love, I hope it doesn't dilute your perception of me! tee hee... I'm not a "run around" hopping from new thing to new thing. No, I find with body work, I DO love them all, just at different times, when my body has a specific calling. And I'm grateful they are all out there for the lovin'.

As our ability to listen to our body increases, we fine-tune sensations and call on them to access flexibility, agility, mobility, strength, and stability -- FAMSS for short.  In Nia, we often refer to FAMSS the Five Sensations.  Together, FAMSS provide functional fitness and conditioning, which lead to balance and harmony throughout our bodies.  What do these sensations feel like?  And how do we access them?

Flexibility is sensed as energy moving outward along the bones.  There's an elastic quality of muscles and joints, and a feeling of warmth.  If we lose flexibility, we tend to feel heavy, rigid, stiff, cramped, or tired.  We can access flexibility by invoking a sense of lengthening from the center of our bodies.  Yawning with our whole body is a natural way of stretching and inviting flexibility.  Without even moving, we can sense flexibility by connecting our mind with our body in the imagination of muscle along the bone.

Agility is sensed as a feeling of pushing and pulling, a shifting of dynamic tension, a sense of yin (feminine) and yang) masucline. It's sensed as the moment of starting a movement and the signal to stop a movement. The opposite of feeling agile is a sense of losing response, speed, and control.  We can access agility by playing with sudden starts and stops, and with changes in speed of movements.

Mobility is sensed as energy in constant motion, range of motion around the joints. By playing with mobility, we can feel that "mojo flow", the magic of our body being in tune. Lack of mobility may be sensed as a tightness, discomfort, or loss of power.  Like a gyroscope that fluidly changes direction while staying in motion, we can call on the sensation of mobility.